Vacation in England and cruise to the Faroes, Iceland and Norwegian fjords 2013

 2013 Vacation in England and cruise to the Faroes, Iceland and Norwegian fjords

21/6/13   Went to family in London
The first night we saw the play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time based on the book by Mark Haddon.   This is about a kid with Asbergers disease and that he is extremely good at maths but struggles to deal with his broken family and difficulty relating to society.  We were in the upper circle in tiers so your feet are above the person below's head, anyone with vertigo would not like to sit here.
 22/6/13 Saw the play "2 Governors", luckily our seats were upgraded and we sat in second row. People in the audience were brought up to take part in this comedy. A girl in the audience went up and ended up being covered with fire extinguishing spray and was sent to have a shower - actually she was an actress.
 Saw the musical "Merrily we role along" This story starts in 1972 and goes backwards to 1958 when the songwriter starts his career. Excellent musical but it was not well received in the States as it portray a decadent lifestyle. We also had upgraded seats here.

24/7/13 Went shopping and had lunch at Brenda and Frank, Evan came later and joined us for supper.
Monday went to Liverpool Street station and I sent Astrid to see the statue of the Kinder train children. From there took train to Hawrich where we boarded the Cruise ship.  "Celebrity Infinity"  This train continues to Norwich and Ipswich. Harwrich in the past was a Ferry port to the continent before the days of the Euro-star train.
While waiting for our room to get ready their was a lifeboat drill.
Tuesday a full day at sea with good weather and smooth sea. When the ship moved north along the east English coast we saw miles of windmills in the sea.
Went to a lecture  on the History of Space research by an engineer who worked 35 years at NASA and knew all of the astronauts.  Space research has now become a private industry no longer government.
Another lecture was on whales and the history of whaling.  If you looked out you could fishing boats and oil drilling rigs.
 In the evening we had a cocktail invitation of the group that was going on the Bergen tour.  After supper the entertainment was of musical and dancing from Ireland USA Argentina and Brazil. The also had a Jazz band that played music of the big band days.
Wednesday Arrived at the Faroe Islands and took a walk around the capital town Torshaven. You see houses with turf roofs.  We saw bicycles left around unlocked and buses are free to get the public to leave their cars at home and makes it easy for children to travel.
We were a group of 14 on a tour to the guides house where we met his family and learned about life on these islands. A total of 18 island 17 of which are inhabited. The population is 49 000 of which 18 000 live in the capital.
40 % of the income comes from the salmon ponds the rest from fishing but today they have tourism. The speak Faroes as well as Danish and all learn English. The Faroes is an independent country protected by Denmark and have Danish passports. The trees one sees were specially imported and they manage to grow in sheltered valleys. One sees sheep and cows for local consumption and many people study  and work abroad before returning home. It is a 2 hour flight to Kopenhagen. During WW2 they were occupied by the British as part of the Atlantic patrole and the British built the only airport.
On the ship the evening entertainment was by a Welsh singer Diane Cussins. In the bars on the ship there was also a singer of folk songs and a 3 piece string orchestra of Russians playing classics and song tunes.


27/6 Day at sea with a lecture on the Space Shuttle Program and why it ended as it was not a safe design. The Astronauts today are in a module at the top of the rocket and have a chance if the rocket blows up.
Another lecture on  Iceland and what is unique in its history.  I found it interesting but Astrid considered it a Google lecture. The see became rough and I felt uncomfortable but a sea-sick pill solved the problem.
The entertainment that evening was by a hypnotist who managed with half of the subject that volunteered. It is interesting but it is not the type of thing I would find entertaining a second time.
----------------------28/6/13 We were up early to take a full day tour from Reykjavik. We were taken to see a geyser which exploded ever 8 minutes in an erea where steam keeps coming out of the ground all over. Nearby was Glutfos a geyser heated outside pool spar where we swam and sauna. The bath were between 32 and 36C.  Wealthy Icelanders do not generally build their own pools and going to the pool is a social thing - you can't swim and then sunbath.
We were given lunch of meat soup and bread rolls with coffee.  It struck me as a very sensible easy way of providing a meal for a big group of people. We were taken to the Kerid  crater which looks like the Kimberley big hole but is a 6000 year old volcano.  They once put an opera singer on a boat in the water with the audience up top as it has great acoustics.
 We walked down to a double waterfall which is very impressive, when you think that the country is so small and that so much water keeps flowing.

2013 Summer vacation in England and cruise to the Faroese Iceland and Norwegian fjords
We were taken for a walk between the American and European plates- Iceland is splitting in 2 at the rate of 2 mm a year but the land between keeps filling up.
At the end of the day we were taken to a new shopping centre that 6 years ago was the sight of a house that had a fissure open up under it. The fissure is covered with glass so you can look down and see how deep it is and the preserved broken kitchen with the effect of the earthquake.   Iceland's income is mostly from fish, they are not part of the EU and have 200 km fishing area and have managed to preserve their cod by keeping out foreign fishing boats.  They also have plenty of cheap electricity both geothermal and hydro. Alcoa imports aluminum ore from Brazil and Australia and turns it into ingots in Iceland.     Now tourism is important the 340 000 citizens get 680 000 tourist visiting every year.
28/6/13 Walked to the old part of Reykjavik and saw the early building which had corrugated iron surface and Astrid found a place with free WiFi but it was very slow.  The entertainment back on the ship was a cooking competition.  Then Broadway songs from the 1970s and we saw the movie "This must be the place" with Sean Penn. The choice of movies on this cruise were weird or unsuitable  and we never went to others including "The Life of Pi" in which the ship sinks.
30/6/13 Sunday - Came into the fjord lf the northern part of Iceland Akureyn.  Here the sun can be seen except for 2 and a half hours after midnight, it came directly into our porthole which was facing east and felt very warm even though outside is 11C Went for a tour of the town.  The very end of the fjord has been filled in making an airport as that is the only flat area. Taken to a series of waterfall amazing to see so much gushing water and snow still on the mountains.      Went to Laufus to see a house and church originally built in 1650.  Simple wood houses interconnecting with light coming in through the ceiling windows.  Then turf is put around and on the roof and grass grow all over. this acts as insulation. There was a collection of tools, furniture and cloths worn.  All along the road the bus had to avoid sheep.  Back in Akureyn we went to a botanical garden started in 1910 to research what plants can grow in Iceland.  Plants brought from high mountains to try out, there were some big trees a sight rare in Iceland.  The entertainment that evening was Greg Scott a classical violinist entertainer and had a wide repertoire of music types played with the band.
1/7/13 A day at sea with all sorts of lectures.  One by the Captain on navigating the ship.  He said the it just fits into the locks of the Panama canal with a foot space on each side, that it uses a barrel of fuel (180 litres) a minute and they travel taking into account the wind and currents to economize.   A lecture on the animals of Norway and the evening the band played with Rick from Nashville.


2/7/13 Woke up at 6am entering the fjord of Norway which goes 17km inland to Gereinges. Along the way are the 7 sisters these are waterfalls from the top of the mountains into the fjord.  You also see houses that you can only get to by boat otherwise cliffs go strait into the water with lots of trees. To get ashore you had to take a lifeboat which they called " tenders" as there is no docking here. It says on it that as a tender it can take up to 120 people but as a lifeboat 150.  We went on an excursion to the Hadelseter Mountain farm and to get there we had to drive up 11 hairpin bends and could get a good view of the cruisers and town below.    The farm is building of 300 years old farm preserved the way it was. The sheep and goats are brought up the mountain in summer so that the farms in the valley can recover and the grass can be harvested and stored for winter feed. Goats cheese and caramelized cheese is made there. All the houses have turf roofs.    That evening we were entertained by an Australian Greg Bonhom.
3/7/13 The ship arrived along a fjord into Bergen Norway and just fitted under the bridge. Bigger ships can't enter Bergen.  We were taken on a 4 hour complimentary tour of the city and saw the old centre with wooden houses of the Hanseatic merchants.  The whole of Europe depended on Stockvis this was dried cod and was exported in summer it was dried in winter.  After a number of fires that destroyed the city new houses were supposed to be build of brick but they only build the facade of masonry as they had to import skilled English or Italians to do this and the rest of the house was wood.     In 1942 a German weapon ship Forebode came to repair in Bergen and exploded causing a tsunami destroying part of the city and killing over 100 civilians and German soldiers.   Bergen is build on mountain and has dozen of tunnels connecting it. We were taken to Alvoen Manner  the house of a wealthy industrialist who made gun powder and paper.  He had an enormous collection of china on a special display wall.  Norway was ruled by Denmark till the Napoleonic wars.
5/7/13  Arrived in Harwich and took train via London to Headcorn in Kent where we were met by the owner of the B&B who took us to Tenteton.  Headcorn is a bedroom town for people working in London while Teneton because it has no train has a population that have always lived there.  The B$B house is 400 years old with low doors that you keep bumping your head the floors are all warped.  This used to be a hops growing area but hops is grown cheaper in Eastern Europe today. Real  summer weather just arrived and there was a music festival in the park with all types of music both amateur and professional.
6/7/13 Took the bus to Rye which is a very old port and fishing villiage.  When the marshes in the area were drained for agriculture it created a delta so Today Rye is far from the sea and in its original complete form, as it never developed further.  Henry James had the most prestigious house there called Lamb Cottage as well as the writers Mrs Radcliffe and Morten. On the bus to Rye we were stuck in traffic as the population were all going to Camber where there is the only sand beach of the area.  We also passed round houses with peaked roofs that had been build as hops dryers but later converted to homes. Many people had spent too much time exposed to the sun and were burned red.
7/7/13 Walked through Tenteton to see the old railway station which worked between 1901 and 1954. Today steam enthusiast run an old locomotive on it to a castle 10 miles away. There is a town museum that shows hops growing and there are many motorbike clubs in this area.   Back in London we were back at Minne and Lionel Fry's house and spent most of  a day with Brenda and Frank before returning home on the 10/7/13